Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.13UNLIKELY
Fear
0.09UNLIKELY
Joy
0.58LIKELY
Sadness
0.19UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.44UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.56LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.85LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.84LIKELY
Extraversion
0.18UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.75LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.74LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
The Greater Moses
Call to Worship
Exodus 15:1-3 “1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord.
They said: I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted; he has thrown the horse and its rider into the sea. 2 The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.
This is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
3 The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name.”
Exodus 15:11-13 “11 Lord, who is like you among the gods?
Who is like you, glorious in holiness, revered with praises, performing wonders? 12 You stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them.
13 With your faithful love, you will lead the people you have redeemed; you will guide them to your holy dwelling with your strength.”
Intro
The more and more I study the book of John the more and more I am astonished by what John does through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The story that he tells is a master piece.
Especially when we look at how he builds his story layer upon layer.
And like last week when I told you that we need to know the OT to truly understand what God is doing and who Jesus is gets put on full display in today’s text.
Today we are going to look at Sign 4 and 5 of Jesus in the Gospel of John.
The forth sign is the feeding of the 5,000.
For a little bit of bible trivia this is the only miracle or sign outside of the resurrection that is in all four gospel accounts.
In Matthew, Mark, and John the feeding of the 5,000 is followed by Jesus walking on the water.
However, Luke omits this miracle in his account.
Now what do Matthew, Mark, and John have in common that Luke doesn’t.
They are Jewish.
The audience they are writing to is primarily Jewish in nature.
And why does that matter?
Because the feeding of the 5,000 and the walking on water are direct call backs to the Exodus narrative.
And specifically to Moses as the hero in the story.
Now here’s the connection.
For the Israelites or Jewish People they had 2 unforgettable events that around food and water.
The water event was when the Red Sea was parted and they passed through escaping Egypt.
The Food was as they wondered the wilderness and God provided them manna and quail from heaven.
And what we are going to learn is that those events in the wilderness were simply a shadow of what was to come.
That Jesus is the fulfillment of those events.
And the brilliance of John is put on full display as he records this account.
Remember how he had just ended chapter 5.
He had pointed out that the Jewish leaders didn’t really believe Moses.
He had pointed out that the Jewish leaders didn’t really believe Moses.
B/c if they did they would have believed him.
So what John does is use the feeding of the 5000 and walking on water to show them that they should believe who Jesus is b/c he is the greater Moses.
Let’s Pray before we get into the text this morning.
The Setting
We learn here that this is some time after the healing of the lame man.
It’s about a year after Jesus had cleared out the temple of the money changers.
We’re not sure how far after his encounter with the lame man.
But this is the second Passover that John tells us about.
Why is the mention of Passover important in this instance?
B/c Passover was a celebration of God saving the Israelites.
And it wasn’t just a celebration of God saving them but also a celebration of God sustaining them until they entered into the promised land as they wondered in the wilderness.
Now get this the setting of this miracle also takes place in the “wilderness”
Jesus is up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
The people following him are wondering around and looking for him.
And he sits down on a mountain.
Mountains also have significance in Jewish history.
When God meets with his people it is on a mountain.
Mountains are symbolically where heaven meets earth.
And here is God in flesh meeting the needs of the people on a mountain.
Notice why this crowd was following him.
B/c they had saw the signs.
They had seen him healing the sick.
He was doing miraculous things.
So they figure if he works miracles maybe he can do something for us too.
Again another crowd of people intrigued by what Jesus could do not by who he was.
So here in these opening verses it may not seem like much but we already have 4 instances where Jesus is being likened to Moses.
Jesus is leading a crowd around in the wilderness like Moses did after leaving Egypt
The crowd is following Jesus b/c of the signs he did.
The Israelites followed Moses b/c of the signs he performed or prophesied the 10 plagues.
Jesus and his disciples go up on a mountain just like Moses did to meet with God.
This event happened around Passover a feast established by God through Moses.
So what happens on the mountain?
The Problem
Jesus sees all these people and knows that they are gonna get hungry if they aren’t hungry already.
So Jesus looks at Philip and asks him “Where are we going to buy enough bread so that these people can eat?”
And Philip being practical and a problem solver calculates in his mind that they ain’t got enough.
In fact, 200 denarii wouldn’t be enough.
1 denareus was a days wage.
So Philip said 8 month’s worth of wages wouldn’t be enough to feed all these people.
Obviously, Jesus knew that by human logic and physical circumstances there was no way that they could feed all these people.
But Jesus had a plan.
Jesus asked to test Philip.
Does Philip really know and believe that Jesus could do something amazing.
“He himself knew what he was going to do.”
Then Andrew shows up and tells Jesus that he has found a boy with five barley loaves and two fish.
Now the word loaves here is a bit generous.
They would have been closer akin to small rolls or cakes.
The note of barley was important as well have been.
This area was a very poor and barley loaves were a staple food for these people.
One of the things we need to realize is that for these people following Jesus around, being fed was a daily battle.
They lived in an agricultural setting and what they ate was what they grew.
They didn’t have the opportunity to go down to the store to buy food.
And even if Jesus did have all the money they needed to buy the bread to feed the people where would they get it?
They were in the middle of nowhere.
There aren’t stores that can feed a crowd this large.
Jesus knew that he was going to do something supernatural.
And he was going to do it with what seemed to be not enough.
You see Jesus sees the world through eyes of compassion.
He sees the needs of the world and at times he abundantly provides for those needs.
We do not love or serve a God who is far off.
Rather we love and serve a God who came to live with us.
Who does not divorce himself from his creation but rather present with us.
He sees our needs.
He hears our cries.
He knows our hearts.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9